6: Bruises
by Evelyn Brightpaw
Summary: Number 6, directly following the gang's Halloween outing. Harley Quinn is having the time of her life, out of Arkham and at her Puddin's side. But sometimes dreams and reality don't exactly match. Sometimes there's more to that black eye than just makeup.


Bruises

"_She dreams in color, she dreams in red…"_

_ - "Better Man," Pearl Jam_

Harley watched the drain absently as the swirling little streams of hot water carried loads of red, black, and white silt out of the shower and down into the pipes. She felt as though that particular coat of face paint had been on her face for months. In reality, it was only a week or so, but she had reapplied it a couple of times since the first coat, which meant all the sweat and dirt got painted in between the layers. Eyes squeezed shut, she plunged her face under the water, picking free a few wisps of hair that had gotten stuck in the makeup. The water was extra hot today, and she backed out of the spray quickly; the whole shower was filled with delicious clouds of steam, and she breathed in deeply. This was her favorite place to clear her head, to sit and think, to organize her thoughts. Of course, all her thoughts for the past few months could be neatly and efficiently organized into one folder – a big purple one with a green label that read "J."

He was her _angel_. His goons laughed at her when she said it, and it wasn't a nice laugh, it wasn't the sort of laugh that made you want to join in. It was that down-in-your-throat laugh that made people sound like they were choking on all the inconsiderate things they were thinking. The frat boy laugh. She didn't care, though. She had learned to ignore that laugh in high school, and besides… the Joker never laughed at her like that. Her Puddin' always made her smile. (He didn't exactly grin when she called him _that_… actually, he usually got very cross indeed… _not_ his favorite nickname… _but_….)

She smiled to herself as she dug her fingers into the wad of dark blonde tangles piled up on her head; she had been wearing it up under that jester hat for so long that it was starting to stick like that (and she was pretty sure her roots were showing through – almost time to recolor). The trickles of water that seeped down to her scalp felt amazingly refreshing, and she backed up until her whole head was under the stream. Sometimes, a girl just had to have a nice, long, hot shower, an afternoon to pamper herself, relax, and think about her man. Glancing down to look for the bar of soap she had just been using, she caught a glimpse of her toenails, ten little dots of alternating purple and green smiling up at her from the floor of the shower. She giggled a little, reflecting that there was nothing like a set of perfectly painted toenails to make a girl feel so inexplicably happy about herself. They didn't match her cat suit, of course, but they were J's favorite colors, a fact that totally superceded her matching instincts. The soap wasn't down there with them, however, and she looked back up and turned to search the shelves.

The magnetic latch of the shower door made a dull _thunk_ as it opened behind her, and Harley started to turn, a little worried that one of the clowns was trying to sneak up on her while her…guard… was down. Then a pair of arms closed around her waist, and she stopped turning and smiled. She knew those arms.

"I be_lieve_ someone earlier today mentioned something about, ah… 'revving up my Harley'," the Joker murmured, burrowing his chin into the curve of her neck. He held her that way for a moment, then pulled her closer, turning his head and kissing her shoulder lightly. "I, ah… I sent the clowns out to do something pointless and _time-consuming_, soooo – we have the place… all… to… our… _selves_…." He punctuated the spaces between each of the words with a series of kisses, moving closer and closer to her neck. Harley bit her lip; she felt her entire body tingle, right down to her green-and-purple toenails, which were making a vain attempt to dig into the white tile floor. Let the guys laugh, she thought. They could say whatever. J loved her, and moments like this were enough to prove it in her book.

The Joker tightened his hold on her waist and turned his attention to the other side of her neck; as he did, Harley folded her arms over his, her fingers gently tracing the contours of his hands and wrists. She was in the process of deciding that his arms might be her favorite thing about him. They were perfect, like the arms of some sort of classical marble, an Apollo or a Hermes or something like that – perfectly shaped, smooth, contoured, lightly muscled but flexible – and here, with the hot water trickling over them, plastering the dark blonde hair to the taut and flawless skin, they looked like they were sculpted of polished brass. She stroked the back of his hand, suppressing a contented giggle, and he leaned his head forward and kissed her on the cheek.

"So, _beau_tiful… the afternoon is… _ours_…. What sort of… _dirty deeds_ should we perpetrate first?" There had been a hint of a mischievous chuckle underneath his words, and it made Harley blush. She turned her face so they were almost nose to nose.

"Whatever you say, J," she simpered, her bottom lip caught lightly between her teeth. The Joker did laugh this time, and he spun her around to face him, his hands slipping down to trace the curve of her hips. Harley sighed. Never mind, she amended mentally. His arms weren't her favorite thing about him. _Everything_ was her favorite thing about him. His shoulders, just the perfect breadth, smooth and solid and powerful; the curves of his biceps, tensing and flexing as he reached his arms further around her; the magnificently sculpted chest carved atop the softly chiseled abdomen, subtle shadows delineating mountains and valleys of well-cultivated muscle, heaving with each breath like some caged beast was concealed inside, struggling to break free. She slid her hands across his chest, up to his neck, reveling in the feel of that smooth, taut, hopelessly perfect skin; its warm, sun-kissed color contrasted sharply with the brilliant white smeared onto his face and made the streams of hot water cascading over his shoulders look like molten gold.

The Joker gripped her tighter, drawing her to him until she could feel every part of his body against hers, and she trembled in spite of herself. His dark eyes stared at her with a faint flicker of amusement as he moved his hand up her back, dragging his fingers along her spine until her head was resting in his palm.

"Then, ah… let's not was_t_e time, shall we?" he murmured, looking as if he was about to break out in one of his characteristic cackles. He lowered his face to hers, stopping just short of her lips, teasing her, waiting for her to finish the gesture. She did. With relish.

* * *

Harley opened her eyes – and immediately stuck out her bottom lip in a huff. It wasn't fair. It wasn't _fair_! It always ended just when the dream was getting _good_. Every _time_. Especially the shower dream, she _never_ got to finish that one. And it was a damn shame, too, because that one always looked like it was shaping up into something _fantastic_. There she was, in every single dream, wrapped up in the Joker, in the middle of a hot lip-lock or something just as good, and probably about to get even better – and she never got to find out because she never got that far. And it drove her crazy, the dreams leaving her hanging like that… especially when she so rarely got the real thing. She resisted the urge to reach across the bed and touch him; she wanted him desperately, but the poor thing was so tired, she hated to wake him. Harley sighed. It was so frustrating!

To vent her frustration, she flipped over onto her stomach and slammed her face down in her rumpled pillow.

Then she let out a strangled sob.

There was an explosion of pain across the left side of her face, and she lay there unmoving, waiting as it took its sweet time to subside. As it ebbed, she also became aware of the dull ache above her eye and a stinging sensation in the corner of her mouth. She opened her jaw wide to explore it, and closed it quickly, tasting blood. She sat up and put a hand over her lips, then winced as her palm brushed a sore spot on her chin. Harley sighed again, growling a little at the back of her throat. She had almost forgotten. She'd had a pretty nasty fall last night. Which meant that on top of all the bumps and scrapes from running around and evading cops and generally being a henchwoman, she now had a whole new crop of injuries.

She got up gingerly, rubbing experimentally at a throbbing shoulder, and tiptoed over to the window of the apartment, thinking of just how incongruous her dream seemed now. No fancy white tiled showers here; there was something large and grey in the next room that _might_ have once passed for a tub, and a big ugly sink equipped with a faucet that intermittently spat dirty water from rusty pipes. They had been forced to ditch the comedy club after the manhunt on Halloween and were now holed up in an abandoned apartment building in a nearly abandoned segment of Gotham; the Joker's goons – well, those who weren't standing guard or out committing some sort of evil deed for their Clown Prince – were sprawled out in the various rooms on the floor below, while she and the Joker had taken the biggest suite, the one that probably used to serve the building's super. The "window" she was peeking through was empty of glass and crisscrossed with two-by-fours nailed to the wall. The spaces between the boards let in a few droopy shafts of light, tinged red and gold and a sickening peach color from nearby neon signs that turned the dark nighttime cityscape into an eerie, stifling twilight.

Harley shivered, but didn't bother to find any clothes to throw on; sitting around in her panties would make it easier to examine the new bruises, and it would reduce the risk of making any noise that would wake the Joker. He had been worn out and fuming when he'd gotten in last night, and he needed his rest. She walked over to the tarnished mirror on the ancient, crumbling vanity. The glass was leaning at a precarious angle, making it a little like a funhouse mirror – the Joker had _loved_ that, and had cackled for a good five minutes on their first night there as Harley had made faces at herself. She felt the color rise in her cheeks as she sat down on the old crate they used as a stool. She had made him _laugh_. Laugh so hard he had teared up. It was corny, but she always felt all …big and warm inside when she knew she could give him that kind of pleasure. It was the same swelling of emotion she felt after sex with him (all four times that actually happened), when she knew she had given him _exactly_ what he'd wanted, and he was too satisfied to pretend she hadn't. Making him smile was something she considered a big accomplishment.

Speaking of smiles…. Harley looked at herself in the splotchy glass of the mirror. Sure enough, there _was_ a split in her corner of her mouth; the dried blood caked around it almost blended in with the red streaks of makeup that banded her face. She'd _definitely_ have to reapply it later – after last night, it was a bit more than just smudged. _Hmm, last night_… she thought. Her whole body ached deliciously as she remembered his lips on hers, powerful, intoxicating, _devouring_. It was true, she rarely got _everything_ she wanted… but she also rarely got completely ignored. She smiled. And then she winced. Right, that split lip – back to business. She touched the scab hesitantly. Great. The makeup would _all_ have to come off if she wanted to clean that up and give it any chance of healing. Trying her best to be quiet, she slipped into the poor excuse for a bathroom and closed the door most of the way to mute any sound; then she turned on the water and let it run. It usually took a few minutes for the pipes to clear out enough and the stream to run clear instead of reddish brown.

There was a tiny radio perched on the rim of the thing-that-had-been-a-tub, and Harley went to inspect it while she waited on the clean water. She wasn't even sure it would still work, but she turned it over and checked the battery compartment anyway. Then she sighed. Empty. She found the kinked cord instead and plugged it in, placing it on the floor beside the sink and turning the volume dial almost off in anticipation of what might blare out of it. She flipped the switch; a voice came on in mid-sentence, proclaiming that his station played the BEST Hits From the '80's, '90's, And _Now_! Good, she thought, and not too loud. She grabbed a rag from the floor that looked like it might once have been part of a towel and stuck it under the faucet, soaked it in mostly-clean water, and started scraping off a week's worth of face paint. On the floor by her feet, the radio played some soft, wistful guitar notes, a tune she remembered immediately from way back in middle school; she tuned out Eddie Vedder's voice as it started crooning up at her. "_Waitin', watchin' the clock, it's four o'clock, it's got to stop / Tell him, take no more, she practices her speech / As he opens the door…"_

Harley was scrubbing harder as she went on; some of the makeup was _really_ stuck on there, especially the black eye paint. That stuff tended to stain your skin. Usually the red was worse, but this batch apparently had some very strong black pigments. As she washed, she ran through the previous night's events in her mind, trying to account for the split lip. Batman had all but disappeared from Gotham after the fiasco on Halloween, and last night was the first they'd seen of him since the beginning of November. He'd only shown up briefly, and then he'd scurried away again. And what's more, GPD had shown up too, and they'd ruined one of J's schemes. Killed the punch line. The Joker had come back to the apartment in a rage, his eyes flashing dangerously, cackling to himself, almost _conversing_ with himself, and nursing a set of bruised ribs. Harley had seethed inwardly at the thought of Batman attacking him, hiding in all that armor like a coward, probably sucker-punching him… she hated that self-righteous cape-wearing nut job. Oh, there was all that jazz about the _Joker's_ psychological issues, but Harley knew crazy when she saw it. She had a _degree_ in it. And nobody roamed around a city in a Kevlar bat costume and a fake voice without some kind of condition upstairs. She had wanted to soothe J, hold him, tell him he'd get that stupid Bat one day, just wait… she had just wanted to touch him, reassure herself that he was hers… that dangerous anger in his eyes only made him more compelling, more beautiful. Of course, she had restrained herself for the first hour or so – even she knew there were limits. But after he had seemed to calm down, had put away his knives, and had half undressed, she had seen her opening. Harley had crawled across the bed to where he sat slumped, staring at the far wall; she had slipped into the little red negligee she had stolen for just such occasions, and as he sat there looking dejected, she had knelt behind him on the bed, run her hands across his bare back – God, it was so beautiful! – and had tried to sweet talk him out of his sulk.

It hadn't worked. The first time, he had pushed her arms away; she had tried again, and that time he had responded by getting up and going around the bed to the window. She had tried talking; it was difficult to remember what had been said, but apparently it wasn't what he wanted to hear because he had smacked her softly in the mouth for it; then he had taken her by the chin, holding it between two fingers for a long while as he had lectured her on the finer points of his _pas de deux_ with the Batman. It was after that when she had fallen and scraped herself up so badly; she remembered the Joker making some sort of playful gesture toward her, and she had backed up to get away from it – and when she had, she had lost her balance, probably on a loose floorboard (the room was probably full of them), and fallen. Her face had hit the side of the old chest of drawers, bounced a bit, and then her forehead had hit it as well. That would explain why she was so sore. Leave it to her to get beaten up by furniture.

He had been _very_ nice to her after that, she thought with a grin. Sweet talk. Loving caresses of her face. And he had gotten that negligee off of her pretty quickly, too. The way he had kissed her after that, you'd think he had never lost a battle with Batman, never even _heard_ of a Batman, that he hadn't taken a dangerous blow to his ribs, that he wasn't in pain himself. Harley sighed. She _had_ momentarily thought they might actually make love that night. But no… he had kissed her long and hard and then left her lying there, inwardly screaming for more. As usual. She hadn't pressed it, though. After all, he _was_ tired and hurt. Surely she couldn't ask him to pamper _her_ – she had just fallen and gotten scraped by a table, _he_ had almost had his ribs broken. She should be pampering him! And she _had_.

Harley threw the rag down into the sink in frustration; she had been scrubbing (gingerly, of course) at the area under her left eye since she'd started, and it was still dingy and dark. Stupid black face paint. The radio kept going as she tried a different scrubbing tactic. "_Talkin' to herself, there's no one else who needs to know... / She tells herself, oh..." _

Except, what if it wasn't paint? It was that stupid voice in her head saying it, the one she always tuned out, the one that always said those annoyingly unsettling things. What if it's a bruise? the voice asked. What if it's a big black eye? What if your whole _cheekbone_ is broken? Hurts enough to be, doesn't it? Of _course_, it could be a black eye, she replied mentally. I _did_ fall and smack my face against the furniture, you know. Oh, I _saw_, the voice smirked. I saw you smack your face. I never saw anyone _fall_.

Harley shook her head. She knew where the voice was headed with this. Same old argument. It always wanted to blame J for everything. She scrubbed at the bruise again, then stopped. Her arm was sore. She had slept wrong, hadn't she? Or maybe J had grabbed her by the shoulder and flung her away from him. The cut on her lip was starting to bleed again – from having dry, chapped lips, right? Or maybe that cute little smack he had given her had been harder than she had remembered, and it had reopened the splits from her pistol-whipping on Halloween. She looked at her chin in the mirror; was that paint? A regular, run-of-the-mill bruise? Or were those the imprints of the two fingers he had dug into her to hold her still? She glanced through the crack in the bathroom door to the area between the bed and the window; the floorboards were all down flat, there was nothing there… what had she tripped over? The voice smirked at her without even having a face. Perhaps you tripped over his foot – you know, the foot he stuck out to knock you over after he pushed you.

Harley threw the cloth down again, this time getting up and slipping back into the bedroom, as if she could leave the voice behind with the makeup in the sink. Okay. Sure. Maybe he had grabbed her arm a little too hard. Was that so wrong? It was just that sometimes… sometimes he forgot how strong he was. And her lip must have been almost ready to split anyway; he knew better than to hit her mouth that hard – and besides, if she hadn't _felt_ it hurt, then it couldn't have been that bad. And his foot had been out because he had been stepping forward to _catch_ her. He had missed, of course, but you couldn't accuse him for that. He couldn't exactly make a lunge for her, not with the whole right side of his rib cage turning purple. She reached up and poked her cheekbone – and after a wince – no, it wasn't so bad, really. Honest.

She stood in the doorway of the bathroom, gazing at his body draped across the bed, watching him sleep. Not quite as wet and glistening as in her dream, but just as sculpted, just as beautiful. His chest and stomach rose and fell gracefully, slowly, with each breath – every now and then, there was a twitch as he breathed too deeply and his injured ribs cried out in protest. She loved watching him sleep like this – poor guy hadn't had a good, long rest in weeks. That was why he was always so tense, she figured. Everyone gets testy when they need sleep. Harley let her mind wander, resisting the urge to walk over and kiss his bruised side. Then, of course, her mind and her eyes wandered a little further, and she wanted to kiss the rest of him. Repeatedly. Absently, she began prodding the sore at the corner of her mouth with the inquisitive tip of her tongue.

She was glad, she finally decided. She was glad he had given her a few battle scars. After all, he _lived_ with battle scars every day. He lived with injury, with pain, with constant aches that went so much deeper than his physical body. He loved her because she understood him, at least to some extent; now she could understand him even better. She had some wounds of her own. And she was okay with that.

Quietly, she snuck back across the room and slipped herself into bed, trying not to let her motion wake him. When she was sure he was still asleep, she smiled at his sleeping form and snuggled up next to him, laying the uninjured side of her face against his chest. His skin was warm and smooth against her cheek. He moved his arm in his sleep, instinctively embracing her, and she smothered a giggle. The goons didn't have a clue how much he actually loved her. He was her angel.

In the bathroom, the radio played on, the band repeating the chorus until it was time to fade into the next.

"_She lies and says she's in love with him, can't find a better man...  
She dreams in color, she dreams in red, can't find a better man..._

_Can't find a better man  
Can't find a better... man..."_


End file.
